The Greatest

We Hominids are fond of ranking stuff. Sometimes that's easy, like picking the greatest rock drummer.

Most of the time it's more disputable, like naming or ordering the best ten or one hundred books. Connolley mentioned and knocked one such list in his review of Heart of Darkness. In particular he was offended that The Great Gatsby got a much higher rank than Conrad's work. That of course is the fun of such lists.

HoD does a bit better (#23 vs. #57) on the metalist compiled from 119 other lists here, and Gatsby does a bit worse (#4 vs. #2), but still beats the Conrad book handily. I'm very fond of both books and would not like to compare them.

Joyce's Ulysses gets headed by Proust (ISOLT) and Cervantes (DQ) here, which suits me, but I would put War and Peace ahead of them all.

What I like about these lists is the potentially great reads I haven't met yet. Numbers 12 and 22 look like candidates.

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